Montana Settles In as Chiefs' Chief

ByRoss AtkinJanuary 11, 1994

QUARTERBACK Joe Montana is completing his first season with the National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs. Still, it's hard to think of Montana as a Chief, just as it was once hard to accept Johnny Unitas, who will always be identified with the Baltimore Colts, as a San Diego Charger. Unlike Unitas, though, Montana is not stuck with a loser. In the Chiefs, he joined a team that had made the playoffs the last three years but was held scoreless in last year's 17-0 first-round defeat to San Diego - a far better than the last-place Chargers that Unitas played for in 1973. On Saturday, Montana earned his keep when he helped Kansas City past Pittsburgh, 27-24, in overtime.

Badger basketball rides high

Stu Jackson, basketball coach at the University of Wisconsin, says the college game misses the boat when it comes to promoting itself. His experience in the National Basketball Association, where he served as an assistant and head coach of the New York Knicks, underscores his opinion. ``One of the main reasons for the NBA's success has been its focus on the players of the game - their personalities and abilities,'' he says. ``In the collegiate game, a lot of focus tends to be on the coach.'' At the college level, players come and go quickly, but the coach may be around for years.

Jackson, by the way, has the Badgers (11-0) off to their best start since the 1915-16 team won its first 12 games. On Saturday, they blew away Ohio State, 69-55. Winning begets winning, apparently, since the Wisconsin football team just won the Rose Bowl for the first time.

Speculation has grown during the past week that retired basketball superstar Michael Jordan may be preparing to try out for the Chicago White Sox baseball team when it opens spring training Feb. 16. There is no definitive word on Jordan's intentions, but he apparently has been working out regularly at Chicago's Comiskey Park, taking batting practice. The opportunity to watch one of history's finest athletes attempt a new career would probably sell a lot of tickets. But some claim that consistently hitting major-league pitches may be one of the hardest skills to master in all of sports and doubt that even an athlete of Jordan's magnitude could do it quickly.